Everyone is negotiating at present, and you will be back with your regiment before fighting begins again.

Well, what do you say ?" "I thank you, indeed," Malcolm replied.

"It will of all things be the most pleasant; the doctor has told me that I shall not be fit for duty until the spring, and I have been wondering how ever I should be able to pass the time until then." "Then we will be off without a minute's delay," the count said.

"I sent off the litter last night and started myself at daybreak, promising the countess to be back with you ere nightfall, so we have no time to lose." The news soon spread that Malcolm Graheme was about to leave the camp, and many of the Scottish officers came in to say adieu to him; but time pressed, and half an hour after the arrival of the count he started for Leipzig with Malcolm in a litter swung between two horses.

As they travelled at a foot pace Malcolm did not find the journey uneasy, but the fresh air and motion soon made him drowsy, and he was fast asleep before he had left the camp an hour, and did not awake until the sound of the horses' hoofs on stone pavements told him that they were entering the town of Leipzig.
A few minutes later he was lying on a couch in the comfortable apartments occupied by the count, while the countess with her own hands was administering refreshments to him, and Thekla was looking timidly on, scarce able to believe that this pale and helpless invalid was the stalwart young Scottish soldier of whose adventures she was never weary of talking..